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To investigate black children's attitudes towards reading material written in standard English and Black English forms, third and fourth grade children from two elementary schools with a predominantly black population were asked to listen to tapes of two versions of a story--one written in standard English and the other in Black English. The language model used was constructed from data provided by descriptive sociolinguistic studies and the children's books were rewritten according to the guidelines set by the model. Four standard English versions of the books were played one at a time to 114 children in their classroom groups and four Black English versions were played in the same manner to 110 children in their respective groups. Afterwards the children indicated their interest and attitude on a semantic differential instrument. Conclusions drawn from the data include: (1) black children are significantly more interested in standard English reading materials than in those written in Black English; (2) black children have more positive attitudes toward standard English reading materials; and (3) differences in children's interest in and attitudes toward standard English reading materials are not affected by their sex, grade level, or age. (Author/HS)